The International Journal of Indian Psychology ISSN 2348-5396 (e) | ISSN: 2349-3429 (p) Volume 2, Issue 3, Paper ID: B00343V2I32015 http://www.ijip.in | April to June 2015 © 2015 I A Dandona; licensee IJIP. This is an Open Access Research distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any Medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Empowerment of Women: A Conceptual Framework Dr. Anu Dandona 1 ABSTRACT: The term empowerment has been widely used in the social sciences across a broad variety of disciplines. Empowerment in woman‘s development is a way of defining, challenging and overcoming barriers in her life through which she increases her ability to shape her life. The process of empowerment will not only be able to improve their skills and access to productive resources, but also succeed in enhancing quality, dignity and work in the society status. The effect of empowerment of women creates a powerful influence on the norms, values and finally the laws that govern these communities (Cheryl 1999; Czuba 1999; Nanette 1999; Page 1999). Empowerment includes cognitive and psychological elements, such as a women‘s understanding of her condition of subordination and the causes of such conditions. This requires an understanding the self and the cultural and social expectations, which may be activated by education. Keywords: Empowerment, Women, Challenges, Cognitive and Psychological Elements. “To call woman the weaker sex is a libel; it is man’s injustice to woman. If by strength is meant brute strength, then, indeed, woman is less brute than man. If by strength is meant moral power, then woman is immeasurably man’s superior: Has she not greater intuition, is she not more self-sacrificing, has she not greater powers of endurance, has she not greater courage? Without her man could not be. If non-violence is the law of our being, the future is with woman. Who can make a more effective appeal to the heart than woman?” Mahatma Gandhi Empowerment can be viewed as means of creating a social environment in which one can make decisions and make choices either individually or collectively for social transformation. It strengthens the innate ability by way of acquiring knowledge, power and experience (Hashemi Schuler and Riley, 1996). Empowerment is the process of enabling or authorizing individual to think, take action and control work in an autonomous way. It is the process by which one can gain control over one‘s destiny and the circumstances of one‘s lives. Empowerment includes control over resources (physical, human, intellectual and financial) and over ideology (beliefs, values and attitudes) (Baltiwala, 1994). 1 Assistant Professor, AIBAS, Amity University, Lucknow.